


Kisame's Kids

by RoeDusk



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loyalty, Parent-Child Relationship, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 19:46:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8298160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoeDusk/pseuds/RoeDusk
Summary: Support comes in many forms, and loyalty was never unquestioning for Kisame.
What his support meant to those closest to him over the course the Naruto plot.





	

For Zabuza it was about power, being taught the tools to to fight one step ahead of anyone who wanted to hurt him.  About bruises and scrapes and getting his face ground into the dirt.  About the difference in grip required to wield different types of swords, and showing him how to take someone’s head off with a serving platter because they were both bored that day.  It was finally finding someone to take him seriously after he was pawned off on the Kiri Swordsman Corps, who pawned him off on someone else.  (The Mizukage says he _will_ be trained to make the most of his potential, because he’s all they have left of the graduating class that failed to kill him.)

Kisame took him off the last guy with a grin.  Not a happy grin, and not at Zabuza but some sort of threat that made the other guy scarper.  Needless to say Zabuza was not impressed with the last guy’s fortitude, and he didn’t care who the new guy was, but Kisame seemed to _want_ to train him so he figured he should just go with it.

He did ask though, why it would be different this time when he’d had three or four other ‘trainers’ who avoided doing just that.  Kisame grins at him, probably a threat, and says those other trainers were scared of him, but _he’s_ not.  Zabuza doesn’t care for the whys or hows really, as long as the new guy teaches him something.  And Kisame provides, pushing him hard but never too much.  Explaining first aid, nutrition, and sleep health the same brisk way he does poisons and shinobi tools.

It’s not kindness by any definition, civilian or shinobi, and Zabuza never suggests it was.  But it’s a payment in a rare currency few ninja give and few receive, especially in Kiri.  When it’s all said and done they’re not friends, they’d stab each other in the back if they were ordered to, but they’re something.  Even if the years wear away Kisame’s tolerance and Zabuza’s respect Kisame’s complaints about the younger swordsman are always mild and Zabuza looks up to him in turn.

When he finally gets a place in the Seven Swordsmen the others mock him behind his back for getting the weakest blade, the sword of a dead traitor.  Kisame says it’s about time, with a grin that’s definitely a threat but also something else.  And Zabuza’s never cared enough for fear to bother feeling it towards the older swordsman.  He knows what Samehada could do in a fight, and isn’t stupid enough to want that directed at him, but he’s not afraid.

“We’re tools,” Kisame tells him once, pushing for some reaction on a bad day.  “I could be turned against you in a heartbeat and you don’t even seem to care.”

“Tools don’t fear each other,” Zabuza scoffs, “And I don’t put much stock in your fortune telling.”

_I’m not afraid of you_.  That’s all he ever gives back to the man who trained him, but it’s something.  Kisame grins at him, but it’s more posturing than anything.  And when Zabuza betrays the Mizukage only to end up on the run he doesn’t look over his shoulder for the jinchuriki's attack dog because Kisame’s already left.

He doesn’t wonder if he would have attempted the coup if the man was still there, or even tried to bring Kisame onboard with it.  He doesn’t even realise that he sees a little of the older swordsman in himself until he and Haku are revived, their minds merely passengers as their bodies fight against their wishes.  Leaves plenty of time to think.

The Demon worries for his student, hopes Kakashi has what it takes to bring them down again, with barely a passing thought for his teacher.  He doesn’t really wonder if Kabuto had even revived the man, he’d be a fool not to, the strongest of the Seven Swordsmen.  But at the edge of his mind it’s still there, a passing train of thought.  Wondering if he did better at raising his kid than Kisame did him.

Haku turned out better than he did, he decides, no matter how their deaths are panning out.  And it’s a smug sort of satisfaction to tide him over.  Until their puppet master decides to up the ante and darkness takes him.

 

* * *

 

For Tobi, or no he was Madara when it started, it was about trust.  And in some twisted, backwards way, it was about who he’d been before.  About Kakashi.  Not that there were many similarities between Kisame and Kakashi.  Kisame struck where ordered, but he didn’t let things go when ordered to.   Instead he tracked down the corruption trying to sink into Kiri’s Information Network.  Right back to the superior who ordered him not to think too much about it.

And he killed the man for it, brutally.  But mostly so Fuguki had no chance of surviving.  Because ninja who don’t follow orders are scum, but those who endanger and kill their comrades for money deserve to die.

Tobi had found traces of Fuguki’s underhanded dealings through Yagura, and been looking into it when he found Kisame already on the trail.  Letting the other ninja do the work revealed that the deceased swordsman had been selling information on Kiri ninja to Konoha, then sending his own men to make sure anything that could endanger his place in Kiri didn’t make it back to either side.  The last straw had been selling out the cypher division Kisame was to guard before ordering the younger ninja to make sure Konoha didn’t capture those agents or discover their cypher, by any means necessary.

Kisame took Samehada from the corpse, a pragmatic, brutal killer who somehow still reminded Obito of the ideals he’d given up in the pursuit of the better world.

For a wild moment he wanted to catch it and preserve it, keep the reminder close so he wouldn’t lose his way even when times were bad.  Before he could push that thought aside and focus on valid reactions, another part of him nearly lashed out, wanting to destroy Kisame for daring to be exactly what he needed in both an underling and a person.  This angry emotion wanted to rip Kisame apart for daring to exist in Kiri when Obito’s precious people had failed to match such a standard back in Konoha.  It scared him, the violence of that impulse to destroy someone just for reminding him of his naivete.  Reminded him of Madara actually, both from when he knew the man and from what little he remembered from history lessons.

It was that uneasy revelation more than anything that made him step forward when Kisame called him out of the shadows, reveal Yagura as his puppet and see what the other ninja would do.  Kisame surprised him again by refusing to believe he was Madara, demanding to see his face even knowing the power he must have to control a jinchuruki.  Something made Obito consider it seriously instead of immediately denying the possibility.  Perhaps it was that Kisame already saw through him so well, or perhaps it was that he didn’t want to walk this path alone.  Maybe it was just that Kisame met his Sharingan’s gaze without flinching. Whatever reason he silently agreed and reached up to remove his mask.

Kisame looked at him for a long moment, weighing him.  Memorizing.  Obito kept his face blank in a way he hadn’t needed in years, wondering in the back of his mind if he’d miscalculated.

Then the Kiri nin nodded once, adjusted Samehada, and asked, “So what’s the plan?”

It felt like a clear step towards victory.  Something tangible he could hold onto when the World of Dreams remained so far away.  Kisame served him faithfully for years as Yagura’s attack dog.  And when the Mizukage started breaking free he obeyed the order to defect for Akatsuki without a second glance.  Obito felt relief at his obedience.  Somehow the loyalty of the very man he had watched hunt down a corrupt superior of his own volition meant more than a violent pawn should have.

His partiality scared him.  And there was something unsettling about Kisame’s presence, the way he’d occasionally just watch ‘Madara’ seriously, searching for something.  The way he’d bring food when he didn’t think Obito had eaten, or take a quick wash before reporting in to spare Obito the reality his orders created.  Sometimes he checked in on days without missions, covertly of course, but just for… some reason he never explained.  Obito never gave him his name, he’d given it up for the sake of the future, the plan.  But he leans on Kisame more than he should, when the solitude tears and the terrible choices he has to make weigh on him.

It scares him the worst when he returns from the Uchiha Massacre, burning with vengeance and something suppressed like shame he’s trying to insist is righteous anger.  Because he’d worried in the back of his mind that he’d lash out, but seeing Kisame made him want to break down and cry instead.  Let the older ninja support him until he could pull himself together again.

So he abandoned his pawn, assuming a new name and a new identity.  Waiting until after Kisame had joined to become and official recruit of the organization.  Tobi should have been different enough that Kisame dismissed any possibility of them being one and the same, but he looked at Tobi the same way he’d studied Madara, long and considering.

He did still laugh at the strange antics and jokes, even seeming to like them sometimes, and assumed the lead when they were paired together instead of letting Tobi make decisions the way Madara would have.  The others noticed Kisame was the only one who never got mad at Tobi and took it to mean a history of some sort between them.  Kisame only grinned and promised retribution against anyone who hurt him.  

Obito didn’t know what to do with that.

Or the way Kisame seemed almost happy to treat him like a child, buying him sweets while on missions and letting him take whatever detour he wanted without protest.  By the time Itachi deciphered his cryptic hints and discovered Akatsuki’s location, Obito knew Kisame was looking at him and seeing a child.  Oh the older ninja never tried to stop him from doing things the way the more morally upright members of ninja society might, seeming happy instead to let him bumble around like a fool and kill to his heart's content, but sometimes he got that somber look.  The one that said he’d rather do more.

Obito didn’t want to deal with the trust or the soft sadness.  So he avoided the issue by assigning Itachi as Kisame’s new partner.  He figured maybe giving the man an actual teenager would redirect some of the Kiri ninja’s protective instincts.  And it did, it just didn’t stop him becoming protective of both Uchiha instead of just the one.

Kisame took Itachi with him on pit stops to buy Tobi candy on their way back to base, and the elder Uchiha followed them in secret sometimes.  It was entertaining to watch Itachi try to spot the trick, flounder a little as he tried to convince Kisame he didn’t have a sweet tooth without actually falling so far as to whine.  That’s all it was really, Obito wasn’t jealous even a tiny bit.

And Kisame protected them both from Akatsuki’s more… experimental members.  Obito never actually found out what he said to Kakuzu or Orochimaru to get them to back off Itachi, the same way he never learned what Kisame said to Hidan to stop him from following through with his threat to remove Tobi’s ‘annoying head’ from his body.

Slowly thing picked up.  Pawns died.  And there was no time for feelings or trying to figure out what Kisame’s consideration meant when Tobi revealed himself to him again.  First as alive, then as ‘Madara’.  The swordsman just grinned and thanked the younger man for telling him.  Called him Mizukage and Madara, both lies.  Even admitting the truth there was still that last lie between them.

‘Madara’ sent Kisame to track the 8-tails, needing someone he could trust alongside the loose cannon that was Sasuke.  When that went bad he never once considered blaming Kisame, instead sending him as the sole agent the second time.  Sent him to his death, though Obito only realized it afterwards, when the summons arrived with a report that detailed exactly the information he needed to finalize his plans.  But it was just the loss of a pawn and he refused to let it affect him.  Not even when the report of how Kisame ended his life came through.

Not until Kabuto began showing off with his resurrections.  Madara’s return was hardly the threat he was meant to take it as, though he managed to look properly taken aback by honestly not understanding how Kabuto could have known.  No, it was the sight of the revived Akatsuki that shook him.  There was something wrong with letting another use chess pieces he’d carefully hoarded so many years, especially Kisame, who deserved whatever peace death might have offered him after his sacrifice.  Obito kept from lashing out with the thought that Kisame would not begrudge being revived to be used as a tool in his plans again.

Just as well.  If Kabuto had noticed his slip up and guessed which revived soul had caught Obito’s attention he might have tried something.  And in the fragile emotional state of _almost there_ , Obito might actually have hesitated over it.

There was posturing and lies, and a war that united nations.  And then Madara’s plan became clear; A world of infinite illusion.  Not a better world but a fake one.  A world of _lies_ , Obito realized, and he balked.  Because _this_ was what he’d striven for all these years?   _This_ is what he’d convinced Kisame to put his faith in?  To _die_ for?  The world of truth where Kisame wished to belong was just a world of lies.

Kakashi was willing to work with him, give him a chance to help save the day.  They’d stop it together.  After it was over he’d ask Rin to help him find Kisame again.  One last truth to admit, and his third and only friend these long years would be able to call him by his real name.

But first he’d make it right, because trust went both ways.

 

* * *

 

For Itachi it was about secrets, buried deep or maybe just out of sight enough to count as hiding.  And it was about the hint of danger his partner always gave off.  No one questioned his reputation in such company, and none but Kisame noticed if he barely killed at all.

But the older ninja never mentioned it, just another secret kept in the dark.

Kisame was consistent, even if his eccentricities were a bit hard to predict.  He watched as Itachi watched him and didn’t try to cover up the secrets Itachi managed to expose in his search.  Instead he never mentioned the secrets the Uchiha accidentally revealed, the ones Itachi knew he _had_ to have noticed, and the Uchiha grudgingly offered the same as courtesy in return.  Better than to risk Kisame bringing attention to his own secrets.

Over the years it became less grudging, until that unspoken agreement became one of the only oaths Itachi could still keep without exception.  One of the only solid guidelines he could cling to to keep him calm and patched together through yet another broken plan where his brother was involved.

Kisame never mentioned Itachi kept obsessive tabs on his brother and Itachi didn’t try to explain Kisame was hiding his intelligence.  They just read each other clearly, increasing with time, and worked off the other’s secret strengths and weaknesses as easily as if they’d trained with them.  Kisame nursed Itachi through the worst days, providing eyedrops without being asked after Itachi’s eyes began to bleed.  Itachi in turn allowed Kisame’s casual touch, when _no one else_ would be allowed.  At the end the Kiri ninja could even offer to comb and manage Itachi’s hair, as the younger man could no longer do so on his own.

Itachi thought whoever had brushed off Kisame’s help before on account of his looks alone was a fool.  A few moments of casual contact, even with the Uchiha’s low tolerance, and he had an attentive caretaker who kept his secrets.  Few ninja were so easily won.

Sometimes Kisame seemed to deliberately share a secret in repayment for Itachi accidentally letting one slip.  But there had always been a few he didn’t even bother to hide.

Itachi had actually been rather insulted the first time Kisame insisted on stopping at a sweets shop on the way back from a mission, thinking the detour was a comment on his age or arranged because Madara had leaked knowledge of his sweet tooth to make his life more difficult.  Kisame had just looked at him, unimpressed, and insisted they were stopping at the sweet shop to pick something for Tobi, but he’d be happy to go inside with or without Itachi.

Needless to say the sight of Kisame handing childish, disguised Madara a bag of sweet pastries with an indulgent grin was one of the rare few surreally pleasant moments in Itachi’s Akatsuki tenure.  Which happened more than once.  After almost every major mission Kisame would drag Itachi to a bakery, street vendor, or candy shop and ask his opinion on what to get, since he didn’t like sweet things himself.  Itachi would give a few suggestions and Kisame would buy him one in thanks, to eat on their way back to base.

Itachi tried to subtly probe Kisame to discover if he knew their secret leader’s true identity, asking him why he brought Tobi sweets.  In the end he could make no conclusion one way or another, but it rang true when Kisame admitted he just liked seeing the other man happy once in awhile.  Kisame wished the same for him, Itachi knew, but made do with lighter frowns.

As his health deteriorated and Madara’s plan picked up in pace, Itachi had less and less time to accept little moments like that.  He didn’t deserve them anyway.  Tobi died with Deidara and he didn’t offer more than a word of condolence to his partner.  Instead he asked him to stand guard at the door of the shrine and make sure only Sasuke was allowed through, as his executioner.

Kisame bid Itachi goodbye with almost invisible words and a grin Itachi couldn’t see any more.  He kept his word, holding anyone else off at the gate, his chakra still flaring distantly as Itachi breathed his last.  Because for Itachi it was about having one person left he could rely on.

Being resurrected was not for second chances, or reunions.  Rather it was just another in a lifetime of inconveniences and being used as another’s tool.  But meeting Killer B and _knowing_ that for him to have Samehada Kisame must have died hit Itachi worse than he was expecting.  He could have relied on his partner to take him down, but with Kisame dead and likely resurrected himself it was up to Itachi to clean up this mess.

There’s a last vicious thought as he dies again, looking away from his brother, that Kisame’s dying again as well, freed by something Itachi did.  And pride isn’t a bad note to leave a second chance at half-life on.

 

* * *

 

For Kisame it’s about being human in spite of how people look at him.

He’s bloodthirsty and raw in a way most ninja pretend they’re not.  He stopped hiding it years ago, when people assumed because of his appearance and would not be convinced otherwise.  There’s been a few naive souls who insist his appearance means nothing, who claim what matters is on the inside.  People like that don’t last long, as ninja in general but in Kiri specifically.

But there’s others, just a handful, who don’t even seem to notice what he looks like.  They’re all broken irreparably, too wrapped up in their own lies and lives to care, happy to keep him close as long as he has something they need.  Kisame lets them closer than anyone else.  He can’t help it, they’re the only ones that treat him like a human being.  In their own broken ways.

He’s not a nice guy anyway, he’s willing to take some bruises for them.  It’s the closest they’ve got to a sanity check after all, and he’d like to keep them going a little bit longer.  Call him selfish, or insane, but he’s willing to help them destroy anyone, themselves, others, even the world.  Because they see him, and he’s the only one they’ve got.

They’re nothing so functional as a found family.  Heck, he wouldn’t trust the ones that know each other in the same room.  But they’re his and he likes being needed.

For Kisame it was about picking who to betray himself for.

**Author's Note:**

> So... yea. 
> 
> I had a terrible day and discovered [blackkat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat)'s tumblr. A post on there asked about a Kisame/Obito pairing and I wrote this to try and talk myself out of writing one. Not sure I succeeded. (And sorry I can't find the post to give proper credit.)
> 
> More than a month later and here it is. (I'm posting it before I talk myself into waiting and editing it some more.)  
> Hope you enjoyed.


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